Reveille
For senior citizens: remembering our past
By Ramon J. Farolan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:31:00 09/01/2008
MANILA, Philippines - Yesterday was the 101st birth anniversary of Ramon Magsaysay, the most beloved President this country ever had. I was in high school when he burst on the national scene. It was a time of pessimism and despair as the government was locked in battle with a powerful armed group known as the Huks, the military wing of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP). At one point the Huks were knocking on the gates of Manila, and my father had to evacuate us from our home in Balintawak because of reports that rebel units were already infiltrating various outer parts of the city.
On Aug. 31, 1950, Congressman Ramon Magsaysay was appointed secretary of national defense by President Elpidio Quirino. Magsaysay went to work immediately, shaking up the entire Armed Forces, firing people who did not deliver, rewarding those whose efforts bore fruit, inspecting units at the most unlikely hours of the day to keep commanders on their toes. He did not buy their loyalty, their support and cooperation. He provided leadership and inspiration like no other person before him.
Just two months later, in a daring, well-planned and well-executed military operation, the entire Secretariat of the Central Committee of the PKP headed by its secretary general, Jose Lava, was rounded up and arrested, breaking the back of the Communist movement. In the months that followed, Huk commanders fell one by one to aggressive battalion combat teams of the AFP now fighting with renewed vigor under a leadership that had gained their respect and admiration.
For Huks who surrendered, there was the Economic Development Corps (EDCOR), which meant a piece of land, farm animals, tools and some cash to start a new life, mostly in Mindanao, a land of promise.
On the day Magsaysay’s plane was declared missing, it was though the world had come to a standstill with people hoping against hope that he would be found alive. This was not to be. Our hopes and dreams died with the “Guy” on the slopes of Mt. Manunggal in the province of Cebu.
Today we are still searching for another Magsaysay—someone who will inspire us to make the sacrifices needed in these difficult times; someone who will provide the leadership by example that the nation badly requires if we are to get out of the mood of despair and cynicism in which we find ourselves.
* * *
In 1961, Diosdado Macapagal was elected President of our Republic, defeating the incumbent Carlos P. Garcia with a majority of half a million votes. His campaign was anchored on the fight against corruption.
Macapagal’s inaugural speech was relatively short, lasting only 24 minutes.
“Our first mission” he declared, “is the solution of the problem of corruption. We assume leadership at a time when our nation is in the throes of a moral degeneration unprecedented in our national history. Never within the span of human memory has graft permeated every level of government. The solution of this problem shall call for the exercise of the tremendous persuasive power of the presidency. I shall consider it, therefore, my duty to set a personal example in honesty and uprightness. We must prove that ours is not a nation of hopeless grafters but a race of good and decent men and women.
“I intend to do more than this. Among the appropriate measures I shall take to insure the eradication of this social cancer is to assume moral and political responsibility for the general state of public morality in the country.”
Almost four decades later and eight years after his daughter Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the same presidency, a World Bank study indicated that the Philippines was the most corrupt nation among 10 leading economies of East Asia.
How did this come about when at one time we were one of the bright spots in this part of the world? How can we take pride in being Filipinos? How can we possibly command respect among our neighbors? Most important of all, how do we climb back to a position of esteem and honor in the community of nations?
Some of our most critical institutions have been debased. Our judiciary is under attack with public confidence deeply eroded. Our Armed Forces—constantly promised modernization funds that never materialize—have been unable to bring to justice rebel elements who have massacred soldiers and civilians alike. We are close to becoming a “failed State.” This is a term to indicate a weak State in which warlords and armed militias compete with the central government for control over chunks of its territory. Our country is battered by a strong typhoon that leaves over 700 dead. Instead of cutting short her trip, the commander in chief considers it more important to try to catch up with Barack Obama and John McCain in the United States. The President presides over a Memorandum of Agreement between a Chinese company and the DOTC to provide a modern communications system for the country. A $150-million overprice is brought to light, forcing her to cancel the deal. A powerful crony resigns from his job but the one who suffers most is the whistleblower.
We need change. Not just any change. But—in the words of Obama, the first African-American to be acclaimed as the presidential nominee of a major political party in the United States—change we can believe in. What good is change if it will mean the same dog with a different collar? What good is change if it will mean more of the same old policies and practices that in the first place brought us to where we are?
It will not be easy to bring about meaningful change. Right now the old dispensation is plotting how to extend their hold on power beyond 2010. The proposed Charter change in connection with the aborted Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain is a good example. Make no mistake. They are playing the Russian game that installed former President Vladimir Putin as prime minister. And guess who’s calling the shots in Russia today?
If we are to reclaim our country from them, we must be willing to fight for it. As senior citizens, we must make it our solemn mission and obligation to turn over to younger generations a nation they can be proud of, certainly not one that is hopelessly mired in greed, corruption and poverty.
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